Many of us value results over process, especially when that process takes time. It certainly doesn’t help that today’s technology has made waiting optional in many cases, with things like AI chatbots’ efficient answers and Amazon’s same-day delivery. Our culture of instant gratification belittles tedious practices, slow growth, and long-term development. We want what we want, and we want it now.
The phrase “Time is money” is not biblical, yet we in the church have embraced this slogan and baptized a gospel of efficiency. This mindset has reshaped not only how we view money but also how we understand God and the Christian life. In a culture that elevates efficiency, productivity, and convenience, values like human flourishing and relational depth are crowded out by increasingly unrealistic expectations, isolation, exhaustion, and discontentment in an effort to achieve more and be more. In all this, we operate under an unspoken assumption that we were meant to do it all: that we are or should be infinite—a quality only God possesses.
Too often, the church has tried to solve the problem of endless obligation the way the world does—by seeking to increase our time-management skills: Get up earlier, be more disciplined, adopt the latest technological advances that promise greater optimization. But our emphasis on speed can lead us to misunderstand God and how he operates, which inevitably means we also misconstrue ourselves.
In other words, what if our fundamental problem is not functional, but theological?
The God of Scripture clearly has a different hierarchy of values than us. He is patient, deliberate, and faithful. He is comfortable taking his time, since his highest value is not efficiency but love. We need to connect our theology (our vision of God) with our anthropology (our vision of being human) and let God’s values shape ours, instead of projecting ours onto him.
Christians have always believed that God is no regional or tribal deity but is the creator of heaven and earth. Thus, theologians have often spoken of God’s independence: that God alone is self-existing and self-determining, and all creatures—including us—necessarily depend upon God. This is the heart of the creator-creature distinction.
Although dependence is mostly a negative word in Western culture, it is a positive term in Christian theology. Part of the good in our creation is that we were made to depend upon God, upon our neighbor, and upon the rest of creation. Deitrich Bonhoeffer argued that while sin may distort them, these dependencies are not a result of the Fall but are a reflection of God’s original design. The self-made man is a myth; after all, everyone has a belly button! We depend on others in countless ways, and our limits drive us to God, to others, and to the earth. It was God’s intention for human creatures to grow in our healthy dependence.
In her book God’s Provision, Humanity’s Need, theologian Christa L. McKirland describes the concept of “fundamental need,” where the characteristics of a creature determine its needs. When those needs are met, the creature flourishes; when they are withheld, the creature suffers. “A rose needs sunlight to flourish because it is a plant. A whale needs plankton to flourish because it is an animal,” she writes, and “humans need a second-personal relation to God.”
That is a fancy way of saying we were designed to relate to God in a two-directional way. In the 17th century, theologian John Owen called this “communion” and defined it as “mutual relations,” meaning we are meant for personal engagement with God. Without that interaction, the human creature withers, whereas an increase in that relation—in both quantity and quality—results in a fuller human life.
True human flourishing requires not just water or food, oxygen, or human companionship, but also active communion with God.
Our relationship with God, however, is rarely efficient. It often feels slow and even inconvenient. For instance, when God extends his grace to our broken and needy lives, why doesn’t he immediately free us from our faults? Why are our bad habits not erased and positive virtues not instantaneously produced? If God doesn’t like certain attitudes and behaviors, why doesn’t the Almighty suddenly transform us so we never fall short?
We Christians feel guilt and shame not only in our continual struggle with sin but also over our creaturely limits. Whenever we fail to prioritize our relationship with God or whenever we don’t have the energy to do all we think needs to be done, we feel that we should know more, do more, be more—always more. And because we so often fall short of the godly ideal, we wonder whether God is constantly disappointed or maybe even angry with us.
But could it be that God values the process of our growth and the work involved in it, not just the outcome? You see, God’s highest value is not efficiency, especially not in any simple or mechanistic sense. It is love.
Love is often at odds with our notions of efficiency. One of the most inefficient things you can do is love another living being. Loving another creature requires energy, flexibility, and loads of patience. But the almighty Creator has always prioritized love and healthy growth over mechanistic efficiency. As we read in 2 Peter:
Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (3:8–9)
God is more interested in relationship than in the speed of our progress; he is more concerned with lifting our gaze, provoking our song, and stimulating our imaginations with his goodness and glory than in simply bringing us over the finish line. And as most artists or authors know, mechanistic efficiency is often the enemy of creativity.
Wouldn’t it have been much more efficient for God to create the entire world in shades of black, white, and gray? Why the extravagance of a peacock’s feathers, the complexity of the orchid, the intricacies of the human voice, the transcendence of an orgasm in marriage? Was it really necessary to have so many colors, so much diversity, depth, and wonder?
Someone with a modern industrial mindset might accuse our Creator of being indulgent, wasteful, and excessive. But God is not careless or negligent; rather, he’s purposeful and wise, patient and intentional in all things.
The God who created the cosmos valued the process by which he made it. Rather than snapping his fingers, God spoke his Word, and his Spirit hovered over the turbulent waters to bring order out of the void (Gen. 1:2–3). He took six days to create everything that exists—whether they were 24-hour days or not. God could have created everything instantly, but he is described in Genesis as taking his time and then resting afterward. This process, which some might consider inefficient, was deemed “good” (1:10, 25).
Instead of efficiency, God is interested in cultivating love, beauty, wonder, community, and worship. Sometimes he is quick in his work—instantly turning water to wine or raising the dead. But God often opts for slower routes that involve his people in the process: The Exodus took decades, calling for faith and growth in the Hebrew people (Ex. 23:30).
As a dad, I enjoyed watching my young children learn and grow as they developed new skills and competencies—even when it involved failing, falling, or making a mess in the process. By contrast, we tend to think very poorly of our heavenly Father in similar situations, though we might never admit it. We seem to believe God expects us to be instantly flawless, to never make mistakes or fall on our faces. When we think that he values only efficiency and productivity, we misunderstand how he responds to us in our need.
We forget that the Creator’s original blueprint included limitations and dependence—and that his tenderness toward us is only increased by our deep need for him. The same Spirit of creation is the Spirit of sanctification; God is working in us over the course of our entire lives, not just at the moment of our conversion. We grow spiritually by slowly cultivating our delight in God, in our neighbor, and in the rest of creation (Gen. 2:15; Matt. 22:37–39). God values process, not just finished products (James 1:4).
Learning to Love Your Limits
As professor and author Leopoldo A. Sánchez M. observes, our response to God’s sanctifying work in us as creatures involves “a joyful yielding to the hands of the sculpting Spirit.” Such dependence can be joyful because our Creator doesn’t expect us to be gods; he asks instead that we trust and rely on him as God. Neglecting our creaturely realities can produce timidity instead of confidence, fear instead of hope, and exhaustion instead of rest.
Whenever we fall short—either because of sin or by simply being creatures with limited capacities—it does our souls great good to remember that our faith is built not on our own power or completeness but on the fact that God is trustworthy.
Productivity and efficiency are not terrible goals, but they can be destructive when we apply them to humans as if we were merely complicated machines. Humans don’t just need to be recharged or serviced; we were created to sleep, eat, feast, laugh, and live in relationship to God and others.
Oliver Burkeman, in his insightful book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, describes the problem on a practical level:
Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie. You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.
Do we really believe that? Far too often, we imagine that if we just become quicker, making better decisions and getting more organized, then we can achieve all our goals. Such beliefs often work in the back of our minds, generating deep-seated discontentment.
This mechanistic push for ever-increasing productivity, maximum efficiency, and personal convenience acts like sandpaper on our souls. We long instead to take time for intimacy, belonging, and healthy dependence. Yes, sloth and neglect can be painful and destructive for human flourishing, but so are relentless demands to maximize productivity.
Our Creator is neither lazy nor tyrannical. Instead, he is wise, compassionate, and purposeful—and this should shape our vision of faithfulness. The God who was comfortable taking his time during his original process of creation is the same God who is comfortable doing the work of his new creation in us over time. Gently yet confidently, we must remind ourselves that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Phil. 1:6).
God does not promise us instantaneous change or victory; he promises that he is working, that he will not let us go, and that he has a longer view than we do. May his patience and perspective give us the courage we need for this day, this month, and this lifetime.
Kelly M. Kapic is a professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He is the author or editor of more than 15 books, including You’re Only Human and Embodied Hope, which each won a Christianity Today Book Award.
This article appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Christianity Today as "The Gospel of Inefficiency".
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